We're All Mad Here: A Dark New Take on Madoka in Gotham City
by blameitonjoker
Summary: We're All Mad Here: A Dark New Take on Madoka in Gotham City... Madoka Magica a.k.a. "Batman" runs the city where the Joker, Poison Ivy, Mr. Freeze and all the rest make their devious home, but it might be too much for one "mad" girl to take. That's why they've got five. Takes place in a new andperhaps even more twisted Gotham City
1. This Can't Be The Hero We Deserve

It was a rainy day, and Kaname Madoka, dressed in a suit, jacket, and fedora that were all entirely too thin for this weather, was making her way to Arkham Asylum. Kyubey had a new assignment for her. That was funny, in a manner of speaking; normally it was Homura who got saddled with these kind of business.

Regardless, she slapped her newspaper shut. Another thing entirely too thin for the weather today.

Gotham City was grimmer than London. You thought Jack the Ripper was bad? Try an entire city of them. Gotham had the Joker, the Penguin, and even Baby Doll. It was too much for just one hero to keep up with. That's why Gotham had five.

That's where Madoka came in: codename "Batman."

No, in case you were wondering, she wasn't the original "Batman." She and Robin (recently renamed Nighthawk in an attempt to be edgy) took their mantles from Bruce Wayne and Dick Tracy, who recently died on missions so risky that Madoka and the new Nighthawk hoped never to face anything so similar again. Sadly, most of the villains - not all of them - did not have such legacies, and they were the same toxic villains that they ever were.

She pushed open the door to Arkham Asylum.

"Hey," said Kyoko, the red-haired chief of police. She had taken over for the old one. As ever, she had that gregarious smile. She even seemed to be taking on some of the stubble from her former master. Unlike most cops, she fought with a staff. Really gave enemies a scare, that. Madoka wondered, with a shudder, if she ever took lessons from the Penguin, or the Riddler. Those two had very infamous staves, or staff-like weapons, of their own, and had skewered Madoka's eyes more than a few occasions. Luckily, Kyubey's healing spells could work wonders on magical heroes - but shitting fuck did it hurt. "Who you here for?"

Madoka sidled up to the desk and plopped her crossed arms on it. Practically a puddle was made on the desk. Madoka sighed, exhausted though she had done nothing as yet. "I got a call from the Joker," she said.

"A call? Tch. From the _asylum?_"

"Yeah, I know. I'm about to go _mad_ trying to figure it out," she drawled.

That got Ruby to cackle. "Ha! 'Mad,' you say?"

Madoka stared for a beat, deadpan. "What of it? Don't tell me _you're_ mad, too."

"No, not at all," she said (though she was burying a smile - poorly). I'm just...I'm just thinking about your _name!_ _Mad_-oka!"

"Fitting, isn't it?" said a strange voice.

Madoka jumped, fearing it was the Joker and his mad schemes - but instead, it was Kyubey, materializing on Kyoko's head. Not so much better, that.

Kyubey was jangling the keys in his mouth. It made sense, since he didn't actually speak with his lips. He was a telepathic, cat-like..._thing_. Nonechalantly, he leaped off Akane's head and sauntered toward the doors of the Arkham Asylum. "Follow me," said Kyubey, who always wanted to play when no one else was interested. "I call shotgun."

Madoka groaned. _He and the Joker are a perfect pair,_ she said, eyes rolling.

Nobody but the five magical heroes, to Madoka's knowledge, could see Kyubey. He was part of a magical witch-hunting lattice, one that sprawled over the entire world - and happened to concentrate most of its powers where crimefighters were most needed. No, Bruce and Dick had not fought more than a couple witches in their own tenures, but some humans were just as strong as witches, if not worse. And the ones who _weren't _worse? Well, they were just _twisted_.

Kyubey opened the door. Not that any inmates could see it.

Or could they? The idea that any inmates had magical powers shocked Madoka to her core.

But with any luck, in that moment it was just her and the Joker, one standing, one sitting. Playing cards by himself - a true madman. Madoka, shivering both in the wet of her clothes and the chilly air that Arkham Asylum always seemed to generate from its own sheer evil and corruption, told herself, _I'll never be like that man. We're _not _all mad here_...

But the Joker only smiled.

"I give away no secrets," he said.

He was dressed in prisoner's fatigues - his arms were bound, so he was playing cards with his foot, which had no shoe on it. But most frighteningly inhuman of all, his skin was pure white, his hair was forest green, and his lips...they were like blood. Typically he would be wearing purple - when he got his way - and the way the colors bounced off and complemented each other was uncanny. Orange was not his color. But Madoka, and countless other citizens of poor Gotham, hoped to _God_ he would never wear purple again.

"They call me the Clown Prince of Gotham," said the Joker.

"Nobody calls you that!" she screamed.

"They will once I've become a Magical Hero."

Madoka stared. She couldn't make any words come out; only breath. This..._this_ was the new magical fighter for _good_ in Gotham?

Instantly the bounds trapping his arms came asunder. The Joker stood up and stretched casually. She could even see his mad tattoos peeking out from his orange jumper - the orange jumper that he, Joker willing, would never wear again.

Kyubey wandered in and the Joker kneeled, to scritch his head.

Madoka got on the ground and screamed.


	2. The Tea Party Clean-Up Crew

There was Mami, prim as can be, sitting on her tea cozy with one hand in her lap, one hand bringing the china cup to her lips. "Batgirl" Mami, controlled as ever. There was "Batman" Madoka sitting across from her, unable to stop shivering no matter how much tea she drank, assuming she could actually avoid spilling it before carrying it to her lips.

And there before them was the Joker, strutting back and forth.

He was back in the classic purple tailcoat. He was even whirling a cane. _Oh fuck,_ thought Madoka, watching it spin, _if he knocks my brains out with that thing, I don't envy my successor_.

"Is there something bothering you, Madoka?" said Mami, as if there wasn't a smiling pretentious elephant in the room.

"No," said Madoka, bottling up her feelings again. A bad habit that Bruce's post had only exacerbated - but it looked good when you had five o'clock shadow. Too bad Madoka wasn't Kyoko. "Nothing's bothering me except our next target..."

"Catwoman," the Joker lilted.

"I wish you'd let me finish," she said back.

"Why would I, when your sentence is so...how shall I put this?" He gestured through the air, then settled on a word. "Boring!"

"He's got a point, it's a pretty boring sentence," said Mami. Madoka growled.

Guess who else would be growling, and purring, that night.

If the Joker was Gotham's Mad Hatter, Catwoman was its March Hare. That is to say, they both were lunatics; also, nobody doubted that the Joker was Batman's true rival, even though Catwoman had perhaps an equal claim to that. A classic mark of Gotham City's sexism and ignorance. But could you really call it sexism if the only image it was hurting was the image of villains?

And Catwoman was a villain extraordinaire. She had stolen countless things from Bruce Wayne's billionaire vault. To say nothing of the townspeople proper. They were just flies, all of them, flitting to and fro on possessions they fancied were really "theirs." In reality, it was all a big shitpile in the kitty litter box that only she, Catwoman, the best of all thieves, had claim to. What could she say? Bruce Wayne's power was money? Her power was taking it away.

More accurately, her power was shifting the shit around in the sandbox, much like how the planet's national banks shift gold in their reeking world bank vault to symbolize purchases made on the gold standard, because gold is too heavy to carry. But nothing is too heavy for Catwoman - if there's anything in it for her.

She purred as she sat perched at the top of a gutter pipe on one of Gotham's highest towers. It was a moonless night - well, not if you counted her sparkling half-moon irises, which glittered like nothing else...like the store of money she had just waiting. Like pure avarice itself. Some believed that in Gotham, everyone was mad. She believed that everyone was greedy. Either way it was Hell. Lordy lordy, to be a demon of that hell.

The ear of her latex hat picked up the keenest sound - footfalls at the Gotham Bank. Jackpot. She swooped down, leaping in catlike straightness five hundred feet down. Just before hitting the ground, she swung on her grappling hook and crashed into a window...only this kitty didn't crash. She never did. With her split-second delicate maneuver, she actually pushed the glass windowpane inward, and it hit the floor as if it were a tile. She fell in in a standing position, on two feet. Her high-heel shoes hit it as hard as any feet, but the weight distribution added by the shoes was such that she barely made a tick, and the glass did not budge. She could surf on that thing. And she was mad and bad enough to.

In this room was, of all people, the Joker! The only things glowing in this darkness were his eyes and teeth. She could vividly imagine his grisly lips. On the floor between them, a helpless bank teller cowered, his arms over his head. Papers and dollars sprawled everywhere.

"Say your prayers, Catwoman," said the Joker.

Catwoman breathed a sigh of relief. She knew that he was a villain just like her. They had often teamed up, in fact. She knew he was just saying something stupid; he was always saying something stupid. Didn't make him any less of a badass.

He lifted a gun and shot it and a flag came out that said "BANG." Another of his harebrained jokes? She laughed deliriously! The joke was so bad. "Ha ha ha!" she piped out. "Thanks for the yucks. Now let me at the money. That's what I live for."

"What a life," he said.

"What can I say?" she said with a little strut, a sashay. "I'm a goddess...of greed."

Then two real guns shot into her sides. From the left side, Madoka Kaname. From the right side, Batgirl, or more properly Bat_woman:_ Mami herself.

Catwoman gurgled with blood - it splashed onto the floor - and then, as slowly as a mummy's sarcophagus, collapsed to the ground. She was dead instantly.

Madoka and Mami kneeled at either side of her. It was quite demeaning, Madoka thought. Maybe Mami was used to forensics and cleaning up after her father Commissioner Gordon - now replaced by red-haired Kyoko - but _the_ Batman? Madoka was made of sterner stuff, she was the big dog. The original Batman wouldn't've put up with this.

And he definitely wouldn't let the Joker hog all the glory, let alone team up.

Whose idea was that, anyway.

Oh. Right. Kyubey's.

Motherfuck.


	3. Operation Candy Bowl

The Joker flexed his gloved hands. He was standing in the dark. It was his favorite place to be.

Now that he was starting to develop magical hero powers, his eyes had taken on a new glow - a _magical, _sinister glow. They were orange, like jack-o-lanterns.

Kyubey, glowing with some inherent light, sat nearby, smiling as ever. Yes, yes...the Joker's powers were coming along just fine.

Around them was a cell in Arkham Asylum. The cell of Ras al-Ghul...with his head chopped off...and all around on the four walls, this mantra in blood: "WELCOME TO THE CANDY BOWL."

"A FAKE investigation?" Madoka said plaintively, her fists hitting the desk. Kyubey sat before her, not particularly plussed nor certainly nonplussed. The same placid smile, the same cat's-mouth. "You want us to pretend to 'investigate' - hide the truth from Kyoko and give Gotham the run-around?"

"Exactly," said Kyubey.

"Don't dismiss me!" Madoka hollered.

"Kaname-chan?"

The new Batman turned, startled. It was the new Alfred here to see her: Homura Akemi, holding a plate of cheese and crackers. She was wearing the glasses that she'd never really needed; "completing the look," she'd said.

"Cut the act," said Madoka, curtly, marching up to her.

"_Not _in the _house,_" replied Akemi.

Madoka was stunned by her impudence - until she realized Akemi was referring to her fedora, not the manners that actually mattered. She took it off, threw it, and it whirled sideways onto a hat and coat rack, which wobbled with recoil. One of Batman's many skills, useful for Batarangs dyed pink.

"That's much better, Master Kaname-chan," said Akemi, not without some toughness of her own. "Skills up to snuff, I see."

"I'm not soft!" yelled Madoka. "You forget how long I've lived on the streets? I _earned_ these stripes," she said, beating her own chest with one finger. "I _earned_ them. I was a detective since before you've even known me."

"I've known you longer than you think."

"Oho," said a newcomer voice. They turned and saw the Joker; Madoka hated how he had the spare keys to her massive bat-house, no thanks to Kyubey. Now he was wearing some garb more fitting of a magical hero, but more jester-like, and with a magnificent top hat garlanded with roses. The harlequin hat, instead of being on his head, now was repurposed into a necklace, forever jangling whenever he so much as breathed. _That_ would take some getting used to. Madoka sighed.

"Kyubey, can you design an alternate costume for stealth?" she griped.

"No can do," said Kyubey.

"Oh, for shit's sake."

"You kids getting ready for Operation Candy Bowl?" said the Joker almost lovingly. It was pretty rude to call Gotham's defenders 'kids' - fair, but rude. High-schooler Madoka rolled her eyes; fellow high-schooler Akemi, more polite and demure by far, was still at attention.

Then Madoka said, "What the fuck is Operation Candy Bowl?"

"You should know...you're the lynchpin. Provided we can get you to...cooperate."

Madoka's entire being twitched. "Well, what is that supposed to mean?"

"Akemi!" bellowed Kyubey. "Cue the simulation!"

Akemi clapped twice, and in a moment the entire foyer of the Bruce Wayne residence became dots and grids, a virtual world...a zone in which anything was possible. Kyubey used this to create a facsimile of a dark cell in Arkham Asylum. It was the cell of Ras al-Ghul, who, in this iteration of the simulation, was still alive. It was as if Madoka, Akemi, Kyubey, and the Joker were ghosts; Ras couldn't see them at all, and was simply staring about the cell with its two cots.

Madoka realized they were all in their magical hero outfits: she had the frilly dress with Batman's bat-caul dyed pink, Akemi had the sleek dress with a little bowtie at the neck, and the Joker looked the same (and just as vomit-inducing...Madoka hated to imagine _that_ saving anyone, especially with those will-o-the-wisp irises).

"This man is only the first target," introduced Kyubey, who went strutting around Ras. He was none the wiser. He merely sat on the floor. "But tonight, you can all use him as a practice dummy. The Joker already has."

"What?" said Madoka. "Unbelievable. _He_ got to test his powers here _first?_"

"What can I say? He's got years of experience."

"But he's...he's..." Madoka couldn't believe she was saying this: "_Twisted!_"

She was wasting valuable time with her griping. Akemi had already cleaved the fake Ras in two with a serving platter with sharp edges that doubled as a gun. The halves of his body, all blood and guts, dropped to the floor like pickles.

Kyubey spouted, "Nicely done!" Even The Joker applauded.

"This isn't right," said Madoka coldly.

The simulation's timeline was momentarily reversed, causing Ras al-Ghul to come back together - but remain just as defenseless. Madoka's turn to kill him, in her own style. She began with her catchphrase "I am the night" and concluded, with the grace as if she were performing a dance move, by shooting a bow and arrow at point-blank range in the tip of his nose. His skull splintered apart, the blood tinted pink with the fire-like magic. The smoke was a strange Tyrian shade.

"Hm," said the Joker, appraising her work. His smile, though muted, was there again. "Even Harley couldn't take 'em out that well."

Harley Quinn? As in, the Joker's girlfriend?

Oh _hell_ no. Madoka was five seconds away from punching this _lecher _in the face.

Good thing she held back, though...nobody suspected she was plotting her revenge against the whole magical hero trickster organization.


	4. Welcome To My Funhouse

She couldn't believe she was doing this.

She - Poison Ivy - never thought she'd have to stoop so low.

Her powers were horrific as it was. The ability to control any plant from a creeping vine ready to strangle victims, to a subtle venom, to massive flytraps and rafflesiae - didn't she have it all?

And yet, on one black night, she had attempted to take all of Gotham under the roof of one "greenhouse," to consume everything and everyone in a haze of green. Thwarted. Thwarted!

Not by that accursed pink bat (was _this_ Bruce's legacy? a kid the color of a baby dog? what a mockery!), but by her own hubris.

Hubris - that is, _pride_ \- is only a sin for the weak. They can't afford to puff out their chests. See, Catwoman could be greedy, because she's richest of them all. The Joker could be wrathful, because he had the moves. What did Poison Ivy have? A dress made out of leaves.

There was no helping it. She'd have to find the golden power.

Nudging the door of the abandoned shop with one green-tinged foot, she, despite her long history of crimes and trials, could not suppress a shiver. There was a great evil here, and it couldn't wait for her to join the party.

Madoka Kaname.

What was her story? Nothing much, just a high school career that took her from New York to L.A. on the strangest and most dangerous cases you could imagine, all while she served on the Witness Protection Program as a result of having lost her parents at a very young age... Is it any wonder Batman saw himself in her?

This abandoned shop. Doubtless it had its own story. People had derided it as a kiddie's playplace, not unlike the treatment Madoka herself received. Even years after its ignominious closing, it still reeked of pizza sauce.

She couldn't believe that no villain of Gotham had ever used this place as a hideout. Walking in, she felt the chill - a perfect temperature for Mr. Freeze. Heck, put some ice blocks in and it could serve the Penguin well. Ha ha! Just a little joke; the Penguin wasn't an actual penguin, just a very fat and terrible man. He had a hooked nose, too, but not because he was a bird hybrid...and it didn't help him smell any better, either. Madoka sniffed. That pizza reek was getting stronger.

Hard to believe the power she craved was in here...

Like the Batman before her, Batman Kaname believed that any power was good as long as it was in the right hands - and the the U.S. Government was certainly _not_ "the right hands." You wouldn't believe the atrocities that Madoka's own government condoned, ever since its foundation.

But you know what else they condoned? The creation of the golden power. And for that, Madoka could sort of forgive them - because it'd be the key to turning Kyubey's plans back around on his own bulbous head.

Something rattled. An old arcade cabinet of _Street Fighter_ toppled over. Madoka wondered, snidely, if anyone who mocked this place as 'kiddie' realized just how violent such games could be. As the screen shattered against the ground, an eerie blueish mist rose from it. It revealed the form of Poison Ivy, posed sassily, so that her hip was pronounced and her hands were crossed over her arms.

Her lips were pursed. A little venus flytrap on her shoulder bloomed in an instant and said, "Say your prayers."

Faster than Madoka could blink, a venom spray lanced from the flytrap's mouth! She cannily dodged it, rolling past _Mortal Combat_ and a sequel _Street Fighter_. Believing she knew where the power she sought was, she ran past the ticket prizes table, which was smothered with dust with wall-bound hanging stuffed animals punctured with lice. Poison Ivy ran behind her, summoning plants with legs, tendrils, and even leaf-made wings of their own...a whole panoply of demons merely inspired by the Earth, but of her own cruel and dark creating.

A dark rafflesia tossed itself at the wall where Batman Kaname was; the reek coming from its central hole was poison. She ran out the way just in time. The rafflesia hit a door - with a shriek. It was like a baby squealing; Madoka knew not to stop for it. She'd caused plenty of baby squeals in her time. Not that she'd meant to...not that she'd _wanted_ to, God forbid. Just part of her job...just another brick in the wall. She wasn't sick...not like those _other_ fuckers! She _wasn't!_

As if reading her mind, Poison Ivy, darting into the storage room with her, shouted, "You'd have to be _sick_ to come in here! One would _think_ the rumors, not to mention the smell, would keep a cute little suckling like _you,_ _out!_"

They tumbled into separate piles of cardboard boxes, and Madoka counted her lucky stars she hadn't hit something worse - there were cleaning chemicals everywhere, contained and spilled.

"When you want the power," she said, coming to her feet, "you'll do anything to get it. No matter who you are."

"Do you mean that, little suckling?"

Poison Ivy was smiling...it dawned on Madoka that her smile had drifted upward, and that something in the room, something _behind _her, was ushering a golden glow.

An angel? No, not quite. If you knew Gotham well enough, you'd know better than to assume that _anything _that glows is good. Much less holy. The eyes of a devil cattress...the eyes of the Clown Prince of Gotham...the glint of the ice covering Mr. Freeze...and even the eyes of the so-called "virtuous" Magical Heroes, who _all_ did things they weren't proud of.

Like it or not, Madoka had a lot in common with Golden Freddy.


	5. True Colors

He was even more beautiful than Madoka had imagined.

Not the grisly animatronic smile - _fuck_ no - but the golden aura, the tufty bear ears, the uncanny polish of his mechanical "teeth." Sure, the dapper top hat and bowtie gave her some flashbacks to the Joker's own attire, as well as her own misgivings about him...but hey, all else failed, if she closed her eyes, all she'd be left with was the golden glow running through her eyelids.

She was a little frilly girl after all. Leave it to her to assign any good traits to the monster horror that was _Golden Freddy_.

The monster skulked above them. Not just a golden glow, but ice-cold golden breath ushered forth him. Even the gravest of villains would shiver.

Poison Ivy stepped forward and said, "I need the golden power so I can take over Gotham, and make it my own personal pleasure kingdom."

Golden Freddy wheezed like a giant plant at the bottom of a swamp. In an ancient voice he rattled, "That...already...been done."

"By who?"

Madoka's blood ran cold when Golden Freddy added in the same world-tremor voice, "You...know...who..!"

"Not the Joker!" screeched Madoka, letting the temperature get the best of her and lead her to fright. But with a place - and with _people_ \- this _cold,_ who could blame even a _hardened_ detective? Or was she a baby squealing pig after all, still not ready for the truth of things?

...She knew better. She steeled herself and, with quaking jaws, exclaimed, "_I_ want the power to _defeat_ the Joker...and someone far stronger!"

"I..." Golden Freddy paused to intake air, his pistons working overtime from decades of disuse. "I...would...provide...my...services...if...you...would...defeat...Satan...him...self..."

"K...Kyubey?"

"No!" boomed his voice.

"You mean the...the Joker is even more powerful than we..."

"Than _you_ assumed!" Something like a thundercrack erupted in the next room; they would never find out what. That was for Golden Freddy to know and the gals to have pretty little nightmares about. Golden Freddy only cackled with the laughter, and continued. "Only...his...name...is...is..."

Even for the machines in the Five Nights at Freddy's pizza parlor, there were some monsters too evil to name. Yes, _even a soulless machine_ has standards higher than the Clown Prince of Crime. At that thought, Madoka balked, almost tumbling into more cardboard boxes.

"I-I-I'm sorry, Golden-sama," Madoka said, trying her best to add some respect to the golden bear's title. He was so powerful, using his first name would have been seen as an affront. But what did that imply about avoiding the name of the Joker...? Madoka shudered to think - but she went on. "I'm sorry for naming...the Purple Guy."

Another thunderclap broke on, but it was one of madman glee as the Golden Freddy's head bobbed and rocked back and forth on his bolt-like "neck," as if it might roll off and go flying through the Gotham streets, like a banshee. This banshee, with any luck, would proclaim the night the Joker - I mean, the Purple Guy - was slain. But still, with a town this dark, perhaps Madoka should not have been crossing her fingers over it.

_I_ sure wouldn't.

But hey...you might be wondering who I am.

Nobody too special, I'm sure. Just another world-hopping former vigilante, searching for the path to true morality...tried to be a paragon for good, _all_ good, none o' that fake shit. It didn't work out.

People made fun of me for it, they didn't think I could do it.

Well, they were right. So I decided to shake it up a bit.

I became not a hero, not a villain, but an _anti_-hero. Killed now and then, on purpose. Tried doing it for kicks, even. And you know what, yes. It does make you a more well-rounded individual if you try out all the..._parts_ of morality.

Nowadays I spend a lot of my time hanging out between time and space. Not even Madoka knows I'm here. She doesn't know a lot of what I'm up to...she really is nothing like Bruce Wayne.

If she did know I was here, she'd think I'm lonely. Well, I _am_ constantly on the run, but don't worry, I've got friends here.

We watch reruns of the old sixties _Batman_ cartoon and we love it for how cheesy it is. How simple. How...stupid. A fantasy world which we couldn't recreate even if we wanted to. Heh. Watching "me" and Batman up on the screen like _that_ is fascinating. And honestly, a purgatory with a TV? One of the best things ever.

But it's a moving purgatory, and it takes me all across the known universe.

Sometimes I use my time (or waste it?) by being a cosmic cartographer, writing the stories of people whose lives I pass through or by or past. It's hard to explain, you'd have to be interstellar like me.

And a magical hero, too.

Yeah. That's kiiind of a big part of it.

I'm not so much the "author" of this story, more like a "informed participant." You see, I'm a character, too. Just because I haven't been named yet doesn't mean I don't exist! (Or that some cosmic ur-author doesn't like me...)

Wow, what did I just write these past few days?

_*laughs*_ Oh, she really did that!?

You see what I mean? I'm not really the author, I just write what happens and fall into a sort of trance. It feels nice, I like it. My friends taught me how. They teach me a lot of things. Madoka's my friend, too. But she couldn't even teach me how to throw a Batarang.

I wonder what _you'll_ add to the story... _*smirks*_


	6. Suckling Pig, Someone Hates You

Imagine a chess board with three pieces:

One is Commissioner Kyoko, the "bishop." The law enforcer. You'd think she's a paragon for good, eh? Well, don't forget, she's a grade-A hypocrite. You know all the crimes she'd commit in this country. Religion, government...it's all the same crock, y'know?

In front of her desk, standing as casually as can be, there's the Joker. He fancies himself the "queen," but he's more of the knight. A sturdy, strong piece, but not sturdier than Mami and Homura - they'd be your "rooks," but they're not here right now...

Then there's Madoka, with something different about her. The way she moved, like a pet got out of surgery. With a new glow. Quite literally, they would've said, if they wanted everyone to think they were crazy. But no, they weren't imagining it. This "pawn" had become the "queen." And she stood with a quiet grace.

Somewhere above them was watching Kyubey, a chess player. On which side?

That depends on what you believe. Make no mistake, though..._I'm_ on the _other_ side, trying to take him down just as much as you are, Madoka.

\- Oops. Sorry. You're not Madoka...

Madoka, having just agreed to the Joker's proposition, marched out into the rain. It was a sunny day, a clear sky, and yet it was raining...a sunshower, above Gotham. And the rain seemed hardly to touch her, like the air itself was her umbrella. Of course, if you admitted that, you'd go to the asylum. Not the prison kind, the _crazy_ kind. Gotham was the unfortunate kind of city to have both.

She had not renéged on her plan. In fact, it was going smoothly. Now that Golden Freddy'd given her the confidence she needed. Trick the Purple Guy and get him and them all like a rat in a cage...that was the new plan, the double-crossing.

See, Madoka had slipped Kyoko a note on the sly, explaining the Joker and Kyubey's plan to murder the prisoners. She and Kyoko knew perfectly well that this wouldn't bring peace to Gotham as they might claim; it was just a means to siphon power off to the magical web sustaining magical heroes across the globe. Madoka had had to face the hard truth that magical heroes could only exist thanks to the killing of innocents. Well, innocents _and_ guilties.

But if that's what it took to wipe 'em out? Wipe 'em out.

Madoka hummed sweetly to herself. She got into her Lamborghini and drove off.

Somebody pink and small, soaking wet, came into the Arkham Asylum front desk. He was shivering and mumbling to himself, and the Joker and Kyoko looked down on him. The Joker was all that casual pose, but Kyoko, concerned, was about the business.

Who was this person? A suckling pig? He certainly was as pink as Madoka, if not moreso.

All he could keep saying was, "Ohhh d-d-d-d-deeeeear..."

Kyoko had to get out from behind the desk and kneel beside him to get an accurate idea of who he was, let alone talk to him. It was none other than Piglet, a pig who, Kyoko _had_ thought, was only a toy.

What in all that is holy was going on here?

"I must be on drugs," Kyoko whispered.

The Joker said wisely, "Life is the drug."

"Ohhh d-d-d-d-deeeeear..." said Piglet, rubbing at his felt-made eyes. "Ohhhhhh, something teeeeeeerrible happened to my family..."

Kyoko screamed, "This isn't happening! There are only human residents in Gotham!" She wheeled around, hands on hips. "Okay, Joker...did you stick something in my arm?"

"Is that a tsundere I hear talking!?" he said with his hands up and an uncaring guffaw. Because even when the sun was out, this was a dark town.

Piglet flailed. Water flew out of him like it would from a doll. Well, of _course_ it would - he _was_ a doll. "My whole family! Pooh and Eeyore and-"

"Okay, okay! We'll investigate!" She gave Joker an evil eye and repeated "we'll," and he followed like a panting hyena dog, as they paced out the door, leaving Arkham Asylum unguarded - well, unless you count the eyes of Kyubey as "guarding."

Piglet led them, slowly because he was so small, to an alleyway not far from the parking deck. He pointed, taking Kyoko by the finger, and she, leaning down, was running behind them. Finally, they saw the slick of blood commingling with rainwater. When the rain splattered, the blood flew up, making tiny geysers. Gotham's water park. Not seen since Bruce Wayne's younger days.

The Joker, looking down at the bodies, whistled. "Never knew a cartoon bear and a cartoon dog could have so much blood," he said jovially. He was rocking on his foot heels, hands in his pockets. Could have easily pulled out his pocket scythe, killed more.

But then Piglet's felt eyes widened.

He murmured something new. "Car...car..."

Kyoko looked around but she didn't see a car. "What car? Joker, this guy might be crazier than you!"

"CAR! C-CAAAAAR!"

The Piglet was jumping up and down trying to direct their attention _straight upwards,_ but it was too late. Plus, not like they could have seen it anyways, because the Golden Freddy power was in the way.

Yes. That's right. _Madoka_ was doing what she _swore _she would never do, and she had driven up a "DO NOT ENTER" ramp. On accident? Who can say? Can we really still believe that Madoka was in her right mind? After all, wasn't _Golden Freddy_ in her mind? Hadn't _he_ sworn to take care of everything now?

The killer of Piglet was more ambiguous than they thought.

A Lamborghini was sticking up straight out of the ground, its tires still spinning, the nozzle crunched, and Kyoko and the Joker saw the blood run out.


	7. Tracing the BatLegacy&Its Trail of Blood

Another day, another monster for Juniper Lee.

Darting between cliff faces, she leaped onto a rope of vine and swung free from the grip of an Amazonian kraken. It cried out for her blood, but still, she didn't turn back. As she swung, she flew by her little brother, who'd been reaching out from a jungle ledge. Juniper grabbed him, let go of the rope, and flew into the sky...

"Waaaugh!" Ray Ray screamed, arms flailing. "We're in freefall!"

"Calm DOWN, Ray Ray!" Juniper snapped back. Just as quickly as they'd flown, they landed, Juniper's two feet on solid dirt. No worse for wear, and the kraken far behind. Juniper wiped the sweat from her scalp; Ray Ray looked zoned out, struggling to wean himself from that near-death experience.

One snap of the teleporter and they were back home, in their ordinary suburban house, their parents none the wiser. You may be familiar with magical heroes...you've never met one quite like this. Juniper Lee wasn't restricted to a single city...no, she went all around the world, fighting baddies from across the globe. The pink highlight in her hair? A nod to her magical hero powers. And lineage; her former master had had pink hair too. A lot more of it.

"Okay, we're home," she told Ray Ray a bit angstily. Sure, she loved him, but couldn't he just get off her back?

No sooner had she had that thought than something pounded on the door; a downright _angry_ fist, if she had to guess. Juniper sighed. She opened the door, wishing they would at least have rung the neutral doorbell, not grated on her nerves with that hard knock.

It was a young lady with blue clothes on the other end. Though it was daytime, she wore a mostly-black jumpsuit. On the front, across the breasts, was a noble hawk of blue. She was Sayaka "Robin/Nighthawk," and she had some devastating news for her.

As soon as Juniper saw Sayaka, and the utterly cold look on her face - a look alien to her, to that face that had been so gregarious when they were in middle school together - Juniper herself went stark cold.

She stuttered, "Is she..."

"No. Worse. She's been taken over."

Juniper ran a hand through her hair and over her face. "I don't want to know."

"You don't _want_ to, but you _have_ to."

"Who says!?" she belted out.

Sayaka blazed with a quiet determination, one of lightningstorms. Blue lightning flashed in her eyes, and her jumpsuit's cape seemed to raise up in the wind that was never there. "The ruler of your fuckin' world, that's who," she intoned.

Juniper said immediately, "And that would be Kyubey!"

"Look, Junes. Haven't you ever wanted to change the world? You don't like how Kyubey runs things, do you?"

"_It's fucked up!_" said Juniper, shaking her head so hard the pink highlight flew around. "I know that better than anyone! But you stop it and the whole world goes _kaput,_ alright!?"

Her little brother tugged at her shirtsleeve then. "Hey Junie," he said, a little uncertain. "There's a _guy_ in our house..."

Juniper, confused at first, thought it was her latest date. But she turned around - and saw someone else, with a honey of his own on his arm. It was, standing at the dinner table like he owned the place, the Clown Prince of Crime himself. And on his arm, somebody he'd brainwashed. And made more powerful.

Mami "Batgirl" had dyed her pigtails. One was red, the other blue.

A sickening reflection of Madoka and Sayaka, their blue and reddish hair colors, struck Juniper so hard in the heart she fell to her knees. Devastated...she didn't know why...why this was happening...

In his other hand, the Joker was holding the arms of two corpses. Her mother and father, stabbed through the heart by the same inhumanly massive scythe.

They had destroyed the foundation of her crime-fighting world.

"So where's our wedding gift, Junie?" he said.

Sayaka did not have time to explain what side she was on to Juniper. Suffice it to say, as long as Joker was on Kyubey's side, those two were _not_ comrades. But Mami...maybe that was another story...

Mami. A madwoman now. Her normally calm face contorted into a grin, a mad grin. Perhaps not as mad as Madoka's, well, literal _madness, _but still something...less than fortunate.

"You shouldn't have seen this," Sayaka said to Ray Ray, realizing he was still there. "Sorry, but you can't tell anyone about this." She kicked him with superhuman strength, right in the chest, and he fell to the floor, dying the instant his head concussed against the floor. _Boom._ Dead. Sayaka was not happy with this. But it was the best way.

"Twi~ste~d," Mami sang, cocking her head.

"Don't you fucking talk to me about twisted," Sayaka fired back. "_You're_ twisted!"

This made Mami _laugh!_ She _liked_ it, the asshole! "Tee hee!"

"Well," said Sayaka as her arms manifested bird talons of pure blue energy, "looks like I've got to cleanse this house of _two_ demons. I didn't want to do this..."

"No, stop!" As Sayaka dove towards Mami and the Joker, who held Mami against his chest "lovingly," Juniper - of all people Juniper, who had inherited some, at least, of Madoka's pacifist spirit - the one she'd had in middle school, had _really_ had then, had allowed to be taken away by ravage of life - pounced into the way.

Sayaka's claws tore her asunder instead of the Creep Couple of Gotham. The young woman who had lost damn near everything with Madoka's demented new state just lost even more. Yet another needless victim.

Or maybe not.

When her body peeled apart, there was something left behind. A pure blazing soul. Something useful. Her Remnant.


	8. Hell On Earth, What Else Is New

A chess game with three players? It's doable. Buggeringly complex, but doable.

Not even the patrons of Magical Heroes, however, could comprehend the full scale of the particular game going on above Gotham. Gotham, after all, was the site of the creation of a new world; hence, they called it the Cradle, and the strandlike magic hanging above it was like tree boughs holding this "cradle" in the sky of the universe.

After all, a nexus of such powerful Magical Heroes, and those of an even more devilish sort, was bound to give rise to demigod-level energy. A whole planet of demigods...it would change the game.

_That_ was what was going on in Mr. Freeze's basement, the reason he never took over the Five Nights at Freddy's arcade-slash-pizza parlor. The seed of a new universe, incubated in evil.

"Are you quite done with that?"

Homura had been standing at Mr. Freeze's doorway for what felt like centuries. Good thing Madoka had been more lax than usual - hadn't even dropped by the Bruce Wayne residence all day, like she died or got locked up or something. She never would've allowed this. Hell, if she knew, she'd break Homura's brittle bones in two.

The room was thick with ambient mist and air as cold as the Tundra. There was Mr. Freeze at a desk, holding what looked like a marble paperweight. It was no mere rock...it was the primordial chunk of what would become the next planet of the Milky Way.

"Hello, new universe," he cackled softly into it. He lifted and stroked it as if it were a cat - villain's favorite pet. Not the sort of character you want a young planet to have.

"I have heard of cosmoses in dog collars," said Homura by way of chastisement, "but this is ridiculous."

"Oh, what would you know?" barked Mr. Freeze. "Have you ever loved and lost, as I have?"

"As a matter of fact," she said, telling a half-truth, "I have."

"Have you pledged your life, every waking moment, to bringing her back?"

"Yes," she repeated, now telling more like three-fourths of the truth. Only her person was Madoka, not the late Ms. Freeze.

Just then, an odd assortment of noises, beeping and buzzing like an insect's massive-made mandibles, sounded throughout the room. Homura slammed her ears shut, but Mr. Freeze, who knew what this was, was at ease. This was a sort of extraterrestrial phone call. They were about to be visited by an outright god - or what passed for a god in this cynical world.

Between Homura and Mr. Freeze's desk, there appeared in a swirl of sparks, stones, and snow, an alien being named Suriel. She had a secondary color scheme, which disturbed Homura as it brought back memories of that Clown Prince of Crime with whom all of Gotham was so disastrously familiar. But this time, her eyes were the green ones, and the purple, with notes of blue, was all around her in her clothes and in faint tendrils like cables that wisped up from all her joints. Suriel...a kinder god than most.

"Look at that planet, Suriel," said Homura immediately.

Suriel walked over and looked at Mr. Freeze's planet.

"Shit-" Mr. Freeze gave a start, jerked it away, but Suriel grabbed it lightly away from him. "Homura! What the - it's not time yet! What's your game!?"

"Oh," said Homura with a childish innocent play, "it's not _my_ game."

"Mr. Freeze, what you have _already_ done to this planet is unacceptable," said Suriel, but her face and tone were completely stoic. She held the planet sphere in one clawlike hand. "Half the globe in eternal darkness? Wildfires on five continents? We chose you because we expected you to nurture. Like it was the son you never had."

Mr. Freeze bit back his spiteful anger. "Then you didn't really know me," he said as coldly as his moniker. To tell the truth, he _was _raising the planet like the aforementioned son - into a life of crime. According to plan. And it would've escaped Suriel's notice, had Homura not opened her big mouth. Some butler.

"Look," said Suriel, leveling with him. "As you know, superpowered beings are about to descend on Gotham like crazy. They will all be in pursuit of this planet, power of all the metal colors, and magical energy wherever they can get it. It's gonna be wild. It's gonna be crazy. And if you don't bring some moral order into Earth B, this thing I'm cradling in my hand right now...it's gonna be bad for your planet, too. As in I'm-gonna-kill-everyone-for-the-injustice bad."

Mr. Freeze hissed at the awkward situation. "_Ouch,_" he said.

Then the mandible beeping started again. It was Suriel's floating living spirit toolbox, which she summoned beside her as soon as she heard the beep. Opening it - not to stash the planet in, because she'd tossed that to Mr. Freeze a moment ago and he'd fluttered to catch it - she found her smartphone. Because some technology is just so good it's universe standard. Turning it on, she found a strange pink glow on the map in some random location in the United States.

Or was it... Oh, shit. It was coming to Gotham.

"Mr. Freeze, what the fuck did you do this time? This world isn't supposed to host Remnants," Suriel said a little bitterly but without obvious emotion.

"A...Remnant?" said Homura.

"That's right. A spirit made from the power of the dead. Every person and animal has a Remnant upon death. Most of them are crazy powerful, and belligerent."

"So that means..."

Mr. Freeze, incredibly, laughed. The laugh bounced around his plexiglas helmet, made the snow and ice in there twinkle grotesquely. "Party time."


End file.
